Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron held a phone conversation on Friday to discuss the establishment of long-term and legally binding security guarantees between Russia and the West. According to a Kremlin statement, Putin told Macron that Russia will carefully study the written responses from the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to Moscow's draft agreements on security guarantees. Putin stressed that the U.S. and NATO responses did not take into account such fundamental concerns of Russia as stopping NATO's expansion and refraining from deploying offensive weapons near Russian borders, among others.